Night Shift

[nursenatty14]

Does anyone work the night shift specifically in the OR? I just accepted a job on night shift, and I'm not really sure what to expect. Is it basically emergency surgery? And how busy are you during night shift - is there a constant but slow flow, or is it moments of doing next to nothing and then have a surgery all of a sudden? I'm very excited for my opportunity, just very curious!

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Totally going to vary from facility to facility. I work in the largest hospital in my county, which is also the trauma center for the county. It is not a big city like say New York or Los Angeles. Some nights there aren't any surgeries, some nights we might be using the call team to finish a case, and some nights it's nonstop trauma/emergency surgery. Night shift is responsible for ensuring that all cases for the next day are picked, rooms are set up, and films are available. Quite honestly, these are questions I would have gotten answered before accepting the position. Also, make sure you get oriented on nights- some places will only orient on day shift and then one is left to their own devices on their scheduled shift.

[TraumaORnurse]

I work night shift in the OR of a trauma center. Some nights it's non-stop crazy, other nights we don't do any cases. Typical cases I see at night are abdominal traumas, traumatic hand injuries, open ortho fractures, cranis, and emergent bellies (appy's & dead bowel mostly). Occasionally we'll see a tonsil bleed or a kid that swallowed something. Outside of doing cases, we set up 30 ORs for the next day - correct bed in the correct position, correct equipment, etc - pick case carts, and get report from the floors for 1st case IPs.